Masters Of War

Come you masters of war You that build all the guns You that build the death planes You that build all the bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks. You that never done nothin' But build to destroy You play with my world Like it's your little toy You put a gun in my hand And you hide from my eyes And you turn and run farther When the fast bullets fly. Like Judas of old You lie and deceive A world war can be won You want me to believe But I see through your eyes And I see through your brain Like I see through the water That runs down my drain. You fasten all the triggers For the others to fire Then you set back and watch When the death count gets higher You hide in your mansion' As young people's blood Flows out of their bodies And is buried in the mud. You've thrown the worst fear That can ever be hurled Fear to bring children Into the world For threatening my baby Unborn and unnamed You ain't worth the blood That runs in your veins. How much do I know To talk out of turn You might say that I'm young You might say I'm unlearned But there's one thing I know Though I'm younger than you That even Jesus would never Forgive what you do. Let me ask you one question Is your money that good Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul. And I hope that you die And your death'll come soon I will follow your casket In the pale afternoon And I'll watch while you're lowered Down to your deathbed And I'll stand over your grave 'Til I'm sure that you're dead.------- Bob Dylan 1963

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Ariz. sheriff faces crossroads in civil rights case

By Jacques Billeaud, Associated Press

PHOENIX – America's self-proclaimed toughest sheriff is fast approaching a crossroads where he must decide either to settle claims that his officers racially profiled Latinos in his trademark immigration patrols — and overhaul his practices — or take his chances at trial.

By Charlie Leight, Gannett

Sheriff Joe Arpaio responds speaks to the press March 1.

By Charlie Leight, Gannett

Sheriff Joe Arpaio responds speaks to the press March 1.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio faces an April 14 deadline for concluding talks with the U.S. Justice Department to settle a wide range of civil rights allegations, including that the sheriff launched some immigration patrols based on letters from people who complained about people with dark skin congregating in a given area or speaking Spanish but never reporting an actual crime. The sheriff has become nationally known for his tough stance against illegal immigration.

A settlement could lead to changes long sought by Arpaio's critics and short-circuit a separate racial profiling case set for trial this summer. Most police agencies facing similar pressures from the Justice Department opt to settle, but critics wonder whether the sheriff's stubborn streak — a quality that endears him to his supporters — will lead him to confront the allegations in court.

"It makes him a hero," said Antonio Bustamante, a Phoenix civil rights attorney and member of a group of Latino and black leaders calling for an overhaul of Arpaio's policies. "We have a different character as a sheriff."

The Justice Department has accused Arpaio's office of racially profiling Latinos, punishing Hispanic jail inmates for speaking Spanish and having a culture of disregard for basic constitutional rights. The sheriff's office has denied allegations of systematic discriminatory policing, and asked federal authorities to provide facts. But it also conditionally agreed to talk with the Justice Department about ways to correct any violations. READ MORE

The cause was not sectarian hatred, natural disaster or accidental fire. Rather, there were simply too many people in the village who wanted to pray. The beautiful old mosque could not hold them all. In our functional times, the village elders came together in a Jirga and decided unanimously to demolish the historic mosque. A new one is being built on the site.

The mosque did qualify for protection against structural damage under the antiquities law. Nevertheless, the will for expansion won out.

“Our great grandfather Sardar Mehmood Khan, a local landlord, had built the mosque about 250 years ago and it was named Sehr Masjid, which means ‘mosque built on height’,” said Sardar Muhammad Shafique, who claims to be one of the descendants of Sardar Mehmood Khan.READ MORE

Cesar Chavez. (Photo: Wikimedia)I hope we can all pause and reflect on the extraordinary life of a true American hero today (March 31). It's Cesar Chavez Day, proclaimed by President Obama and observed throughout the country on the 85th birth date of the late founder of the United Farm Workers union. It's an official state holiday in California, Texas and Colorado.

In ancient Greece, an “apology” was a formal speech presented by a defendant in a legal proceeding; thus Plato recounted Socrates’ defense against charges of impiety and corrupting the youth in a dialogue called “The Apology.” Early Christian writers used the term to refer to formal justifications of theological positions. They produced “apologia” directed, in the first instance, to pagans, heretics, schismatics and other non-believers. This usage was revived in the late Middle Ages and continues in theological circles to this day.

Of course, this is not how the word is mainly used. In English and other modern languages, to apologize is to beg forgiveness. This usage has become so pervasive that even when people use the word in its original sense, it is usually to designate a special kind of defense – one that aims to deflect the idea that there is something to seek forgiveness for.

In 2008, there were no Obama apologists, only enthusiasts. This was because candidate Obama was adept at turning himself into a Rorschach figure upon whom Bush-weary voters projected their hopes. But his administration dashed those hopes, and so if there is to be any enthusiasm for him at all in the upcoming election, he will have to rely on apologists to provide it.

To be sure, with Mitt Romney or worse for an opponent, Obama can win without enthusiasts; all he need do is remain the lesser evil in the minds of everyone to the left of Congressional Republicans. This is not a hard standard to satisfy. Democratic Party cheerleaders have therefore been able to fear-monger since Day One. They are at it full blast every weekday evening on MSNBC and Current TV.

The Republican leadership is easy prey, but they seem almost reasonable compared to the Tea Partiers and theocrats, and birthers and other loony tunes, who comprise the Republican “base.” And as if that wasn’t enough for the likes of Rachel Maddow, the sell became even easier once the primary season got underway. No need, any longer, to castigate Republican obstinacy; it suffices now just to report on how, as the saying goes, the scum rises to the top.

But lesser evilism won’t do for the public face of a presidential campaign in full throttle. Even if the Obama candidacy has nothing more going for it than the current incarnation of Mitt Romney, Democrats can hardly put up yard signs to advertise that sorry state of affairs. They must at least try to accentuate the positive.

The problem is not just that lesser evil arguments are problematic at best. It is that they are also poor motivators because they induce apathy, not conviction. Republicans have this problem too. But if Obama and those who depend on his victory want to sleep easierbetween now and November, they will need an extra something, and they have nowhere to go for it but to the apologist’s corner.

Apologia aim to convince the unconvinced but, ironically, in politics as in theology, they work better at shoring up the faith of those already on board than at winning over those who are not. There is little chance that Obama will again fire up his base, but clever apologetics might just keep a few sparks alive.

For the “moderates” whom he tries so hard to please, lesser evilism remains Obama’s best, perhaps his only, hope. Whether he will be able to capitalize on that hope in what Gore Vidal aptly calls the United States of Amnesia depends on Romney’s transformations between now and November. There is little his apologists can do.

Obama apologists are already at work so, even now, we know what wares they will be peddling. Too bad for them that none of what they have to offer is even remotely convincing, except insofar as the case they concoct for Obama collapses back into a case against Romney; in other words, back into lesser evilism.

The governments of the five large countries of the Global South, the BRICS states, met in New Delhi this week for their fourth summit. These five countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, are home to forty per cent of the world’s peoples, and their share of the world’s Gross Domestic Product is now just over twenty-five per cent.

Most of what was said at the summit, and in its Delhi Declaration, was hot air, as one has come to expect of such meetings. However there are at least two significant developments that set this summit apart. First, the BRICS states not only repeated their critique of the world economic order and North Atlantic financial hegemony, but they offered new policy guidelines and institutions as a counterpoint. Second, the BRICS states have taken some more steps toward the rejection of the North Atlantic’s political leadership over the planet. It is not clear on this second point where the BRICS states propose to plant their own flag, but what is clear is the frustration with the NATO agenda in North Africa and West Asia and with the North Atlantic agenda in the trade debates that will take place in Doha, Qatar next month.

Little of this summit came into the papers of the North Atlantic. Part of this is to be expected, as newspapers generally abjure stories about seemingly dull trade negotiations and routine political meetings. No wonder that the news of the Arab League in Baghdad this week is simply about the fact that it is happening there for the first time since 1990 than about what the Arab states shall discuss in the way of trade deals and Syria. The character of the debates and the measures taken are not going to be reported at all. All that we shall hear is that the Arab League will not take a position on Syria consonant with what the West would like. That is the measure of the North Atlantic presses’ interest in that summit. On the BRICS summit, even the financial papers have been silent. The only report in a major paper was banal (from Jim Yardley in The New York Times, March 29). It repeated the old saw that the BRICS is more a photo-op than a genuine political bloc. As Ananth Krishnan of The Hindu said of Yardley’s report, it “puts up a straw man,” hoping that the BRICS is a bloc “which it isn’t, and then shoots it down in 800 words.”

Typically, the BRICS states have been wary of a frontal assault on neo-liberalism or on the policy arrangements favored by the North READ MORE

Tibetan activists unfurl a banner reading 'Hu Jintao failed leader free Tibet now' from a foot over bridge during a protest at a road leading to the Taj Hotel - the venue for the fourth BRICS Summit attended by leaders of member nations Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - in New Delhi on March 29, 2012. The lead-up to the summit gathering at a luxury hotel in the centre of the Indian capital saw demonstrations by hundreds of Tibetan exiles protesting against the presence of Chinese President Hu Jintao. (MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP/Getty Images)

Free Tibet activists were arrested in India ahead of the Chinese president's visit to New Delhi, and though India is home to an estimated 150,000 Tibetan refugees, their welcome may be wearing out.

(This is the much-abridged version of a conference at the XII Seminar of Political Solidarity at the University of Zaragoza, Spain, March 27, 2012.)

The early 21st century is addicted to war porn, a prime spectator sport consumed by global couch and digital potatoes. War porn took the limelight on the evening of September 11, 2001, when the George W Bush administration launched the "war on terror" - which was interpreted by many of its practitioners as a subtle legitimization of United States state terror against, predominantly, Muslims.

This was also a war OF terror - as in a manifestation of state terror pitting urban high-tech might against basically rural, low-tech cunning. The US did not exercise this monopoly; Beijing READ MORE

With very little discussion, the United States and as many as 50 other nations have inaugurated what amounts to a "drone revolution" that will profoundly change our very understanding of the security environment.

There can be no doubt that unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, represent the future of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency in remote and insecure lands such as Pakistan's tribal region, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and beyond. [1] Where US boots cannot be placed on the ground to hunt terrorists, drones will increasingly strike at those whom America deems to be its enemies.

John Brennan, the president's top counter-terrorism adviser, recently announced that, "The United States does not view our READ MORE

George Galloway, the British politician remanded to all but oblivion after being expelled from the Labour Party in 2003 and losing office in 2010, made an unexpected comeback Friday when he upset Britain’s major political party candidates to win a parliamentary by-election.

Victory by a large margin indicates public support for Galloway is strong. Labour members of the House of Commons and others in Britain’s political establishment are no doubt dreading the return of the confrontational style of “Gorgeous” George, as he came to be called, to parliamentary debate.

Galloway is famous in part for his testimony before a U.S. Senate committee in 2005, where he gave a withering rebuttal to charges that he illegally profited from the United Nations’ Iraqi Oil-for-Food program. See video of that hearing below.

Guardian reporter Helen Pidd was present at the election count and explains the circumstances of Galloway’s surprise return here. —ARK

In 2009, the deputy chief of mission of the U.S. embassy in Baku, Donald Lu, sent a cable to the State Department's headquarters in Foggy Bottom titled "Azerbaijan's discreet symbiosis with Israel." The memo, later released by WikiLeaks, quotes Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev as describing his country's relationship with the Jewish state as an iceberg: "nine-tenths of it is below the surface."

Why does it matter? Because Azerbaijan is strategically located on Iran's northern border and, according to several high-level sources I've spoken with inside the U.S. government, Obama administration officials now believe that the "submerged" aspect of the Israeli-Azerbaijani alliance -- the security cooperation between the two countries -- is heightening the risks of an Israeli strike on Iran.

In particular, four senior diplomats and military intelligence officers say that the United States has concluded that Israel has recently been granted access to airbases on Iran's northern border. To do what, exactly, is not clear. "The Israelis have bought an airfield," a senior administration official told me in early February, "and the airfield is called Azerbaijan." READ MORE

A settler plants a flag in the ground at a new outpost north of the West Bank settlement of Itamar in 2011.

For years Israel’s Civil Administration has been covertly locating and mapping available land in the West Bank and naming the parcels after existing Jewish settlements, presumably with an eye toward expanding these communities.

The Civil Administration, part of the Defense Ministry, released its maps only in response to a request from anti-settlement activist Dror Etkes under the Freedom of Information Law.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

The answer, according to an Israeli official: not this year (as quoted by Agency France Press).

An internal Israeli Foreign Ministry report last month also concluded that a third Palestinian intifada or uprising was ‘unlikely’ this year. According to the unnamed official, “This report, which is more than 100 pages long, judges that an explosion of generalized violence in the form of a third intifada is unlikely.”

Instead, it was resolved that Palestinians would “continue to seize all opportunities to isolate Israel on the international stage” (AFP, Feb 28).

After six decades of occupation, Israeli government strategists are yet to realize that the Palestinian people are not a singular body of blind followers who can be easily manipulated and controlled.

The erroneous Israeli perception defines the very fundamentals of Israel’s political discourse and subsequent policies towards Palestinians. A famous statement by former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in March 2002 signifies Israel’s official and reductionist view of the enemy: “The Palestinians must be hit and it must be very painful: we must cause them losses, victims, so that they feel the heavy price” (Znet). READ MORE

SEOUL: Pakistan and South Korea on Wednesday agreed to further expand their bilateral relations and enhanced cooperation in different fields.

The agreement was reached during a meeting of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and his South Korean counterpart Kim Hwang-Sik. Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar also attended the meeting. Both the prime ministers discussed various options to further enhance their bilateral relations in the fields of infrastructure, education, human resources, mining, manpower and hydal. The South Korean prime minister told Gilani that his visit would take bilateral relations of the two countries to a new level. READ MORE

Statues of Buddha at the site at Moghalmari in West Midnapore [Credit: Samir Mondal]

The statues were discovered yesterday at Dantan’s Moghalmari village, 180km from Calcutta and near the Odisha border, by a team of Calcutta University archaeologists.

“It appears to us that this was an institution on the lines of Nalanda. Some of the decorations found are similar to those in Nalanda,” said Asok Datta, a professor of archaeology and a former head of the department who has been leading the team.

Datta said monastic complexes were found in Murshidabad and Malda around two decades ago but the one in Dantan is the biggest yet in Bengal so far. “It appears the ruins of the monastic complex is the largest so far found in Bengal, measuring about 3,600 square metres.”

Although these tombs may be sparse in decoration, they are rich in architectural features. Discovered early in the last century, the tombs have impressive facades, more like temples, and large chambers with rock-hewn pillars.

The first one belongs to Princess Mersankh, the granddaughter of King Khufu. This tomb was originally built for her mother, Queen Hetepheres II, but on Mersankh's sudden death the tomb was donated to her. The tomb was discovered in 1927 by archaeologist George Reisner where a black granite sarcophagus was found along with a set of Canopic jars, and a limestone statue depicting Queen Hetepheres II embracing her daughter. The sarcophagus is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo while the statue is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

The second tomb belongs to Seshem-Nefer, the overseer of the two seats of the House of Life and keeper of the king's secrets. “It is one of the largest tombs on the Giza Plateau,” Ali El-Asfar, director general of archaeology on the plateau, told Ahram Online, adding that it contains funerary, hunting and offering scenes, as well as a depiction of the Seshem-Nefer's daily life. READ MORE

....................Perhaps, if I may be so bold, this is what happens to you when you continue to report stories that no longer resemble -- even remotely -- what your own viewers see outside their windows and apartments.

CNN has barely covered the rapidly growing Occupy and Tea Party protests around the country, and as the clip from Current TV's Cenk Uygur below points out, CNN gave zero prime-time coverage to the NDAA's indefinite detention provisions, arguably one of the most devastating rollbacks of Americans' civil rights ever.

Perhaps viewers are sick and tired of the same half-assed recycled stories about Kim Kardashian, the same shiny Piers Morgan celebrity interviews, and perhaps a war weary public is also not so quick to slurp up CNN's incoherent Iran warmongering.......................

PHNOM PENH, Mar 28, 2012 (IPS) - For four years, Wan Preung toiled in the fields under the Khmer Rouge, unable to speak his mind. But after the regime fell in 1979, there was still one sensitive subject the teacher could seldom broach with his students: the Khmer Rouge.

"It was difficult to teach the students about the Khmer Rouge, because we didn’t know this story clearly," Preung says. "We didn’t have much information in our books."

When students asked, Preung would tell them about his own experiences living under a regime responsible for the deaths of an estimated one-quarter of the population. But for years, Cambodian history textbooks contained only a brief mention of the Khmer Rouge. The country’s political future was still uncertain in the aftermath of the regime, and the facts of the Khmer Rouge rule were obscured by the politics of the era.

"We couldn’t talk much," Preung says. "It was so political, so we didn’t want to say much about it." Khmer Rouge was the name given to followers of the Communist Party, that was held responsible for mass killing of perceived opponents during its rule 1975-1979. READ MORE

But it seems the rallies -- organized by students, political factions and trade unions -- can't seem to summon as many bodies in one strategic location as planners would like. The Asia News Network reports that they'd hoped for 8,000 but got only about 3,500 around Jakarta, the capital.

Some of those who did turn up found tit-for-tat street fighting with droves of cops and soldiers armed with tear gas grenades.

This is what it looked like. (All images shot by AFP/Getty Images photographer Ulet Ifansasti except for the final shot, taken by AFP/Getty's Adek Berry.)

The five-member BRICS countries account for roughly 18 per cent of the world's GDP [AFP]

The proposal of a development bank is high on the agenda at the summit of the five BRICS bloc nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - starting on Thursday in New Delhi.

The proposal for a "South-South" development bank in the mould of the World Bank is one of the main points to be discussed by the group of five rising powers at the fourth BRICS summit.

The initiative would allow the countries to pool resources for infrastructure improvements, and could also be used in the longer term as a vehicle for lending during global financial crises such as the one in Europe, officials said.

"What will be discussed (in New Delhi) is the possibility of setting up a BRICS development bank for infrastructure projects, development, not only in member countries but also in developing countries," Maria Edileuza Fonteneles Reis, a senior Brazilian foreign ministry official, said.

Fernando Pimentel, the Brazilian industry and trade minister, told reporters in Brasilia last week, "the proposal to set up a BRICS bank, an international, investment bank of these five countries," is the main item on the agenda.

He said that the countries would sign a deal at the summit to study the creation of the bank.

Ambitious project

Sudhir Vyas, a senior Indian foreign ministry official, told reporters on Monday that the BRICS would have to determine how the bank would be structured and capitalised. Such an ambitious project would take time, he said.

"We don't set up a bank every ordinary day," he said.

Pimentel said the proposed bank did not mean "abandoning multilateral mechanisms" such as the World Bank (WB) and the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) but was a response to today's economic necessities.

The WB and the IDB "have specific functions which they fulfill well, such as providing financing for low-income countries" but the current needs go well beyond this, Pimentel said.

A benchmark equity index derivative shared by the stock exchanges of the five BRICS nations is also to be launched on Friday, the exchanges said earlier this month.

They would be cross-listed, so can be bought in local currencies.

The leaders are also expected to sign agreements allowing their individual development banks to extend credit to other members in local currency, a step towards replacing the dollar as the main unit of trade between them.

Black Sea sliver may
decide Nabucco fateA sliver of territory on the maritime border between Romania and Bulgaria could be decisive in deciding Russia's South Stream and the European Union's Nabucco pipelines, two proposed and conflicting mega-projects to transport gas from the Caspian region to Europe. - Vladimir Socor

Trans-Caspian pipeline
remains distant prospectThe European Union's goal of getting Central Asian gas directly is linked to Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan agreeing on their Caspian Sea border, over objections from Russia and Iran. Then there is the matter of European Union funding - against Germany's wishes. It still looks a long wait.

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